Oh yay, Eid Al-Fitr is just around the corner. For celebrating it this year, I decided to embrace the Indonesian culinary tradition in its entirety.

“So, how do Indonesians celebrate Eid Al-Fitr from culinary perspective exactly?” I hear you ask.

Well, for “Lebaran” (that’s what we call Eid Al-Fitr) where we came from typically we have a special meal of lontong (a dish made of compressed rice cake in the form of a cylinder wrapped inside a banana leaf), opor ayam (chicken cooked in coconut milk), acar (pickled cucumber), sambal goreng ati (chicken liver in chili sauce), sayur nangka (jackfruit curry), etc.

And then for snacks we have all sorts of cookies – savory and sweet – so when friends and relatives came to visit for ‘silaturahim’, you’ll have something ready at the table for everyone to sample, unlike the barren table throughout the holy month of Ramadan.

Whilst I always make the Lebaran meal, it’s not the same case with the cookies. I guess I never had the time to do it and was easily rectifying it with replacement store-bought cookies. But this year since I’m on sabbatical, I felt that for once and for all maybe I should make some of my favourite cookies, and tweaked several different recipes (sorry, but some recipes are only available in Bahasa Indonesia, when I finalised my take on the recipes I will post in English)

After a few cooking attempts, I felt like I should bake a couple more kinds of cookies, something with chocolate in it. While at the baking supply stores, I also scored myself some panda cookie cutters, and I just can’t help it. I must make those cute panda cookies and give away to my little friends at Lebaran!

Panda Cookies

Adapted from the recipe as written on the sheet of paper that came with the panda cookie cutters. If you don’t have panda cookie cutters, then use two different sized cookie cutter and make two layered cookies.

Ingredients

120 grams unsalted butter, room temperature

120 grams granulated sugar

1 large egg (about 50 grams), room temperature

[A] For white dough: 160 grams all purpose flour

[B] For cocoa dough: 150 grams all purpose flour + 10 gram dark cocoa

Directions

Using electric mixer, beat butter in a medium or large bowl until smooth.

Beat in sugar in 3 additions

Add egg and beat until blended.

Split the mixture at step 3 into two, and place in 2 separate bowls

Add [A] into one butter mixture bowl and beat just until bended. Then add [B] into the other mixture bowl and beat just until blended

Wrap each dough with plastic and refrigerate until well-chilled, about 30 minutes.

Roll out each dough into about 3mm thickness and cut using cookie cutters